[REBOL] Re: Parsing comment
From: carl:cybercraft at: 26-Sep-2002 9:55
On 25-Sep-02, Jason Cunliffe wrote:
>> What's important with your scripts is to choose good words for your
>> functions and data, something that doesn't always matter as much in
>> other languages. Ideally the words should suggest what they do or
>> the data they represent, but it's not always easy thinking of good
>> ones when you're coding - it can interrupt the flow.
> I agree.
> REBOL reminds me often of'Starting Forth' by Leo Brodie. I read it
> my first Amiga and started learrning JForth [for HMSL]. I he
> described well the art and importance of selecting the right words.
> Wish I had my copy to hand.
> Starting Forth
>
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0138429227/002-1248362-9982457
> http://home.earthlink.net/~lbrodie/books.html
I programmed in Forth and LOGO a long time ago, so REBOL's wordy-ness
is not a new concept to me. While I think it should scale well, I
wonder how easy large programs would be to maintain once the original
programmers have moved on. "Ummm, is that REBOL code in that block,
or someone's dialect?" (:
>> Once you're reasonably comfortable with REBOL you don't give a
>> second thought about this, though it may be that REBOL's only
>> suitable to certain types of programmers. That said, I haven't
>> heard any major
> Yes..
> What do you think exactly it is that one learns to become
> comfortable?
The console and all those datatypes make your code easy to test and to
trial different ways of doing things. I seem to spend more time
searching for the names of REBOL's native words (which this old brain
has forgotten again:) than I do in tracking down bugs.
> What do think about REBOL being used as 'first'
> language and/or for kids?
Tim Johnson would be a better person to ask I think, as he's had some
experience of teaching REBOL to kids. I'd think it would have quite
a few advantages though, in that it's a functional and extensible
language, but you can also treat it as an imperative language if you
want. There's objects too, so it could be used for teaching
object-oriented programming, but once again, you're not forced to
write object-oriented code. Plus there's dialects, so you could use
it to teach not only programming, but how to create programming
languages as well, which would also teach there's different ways a
programming language can be structured. And the total control you
have over View, (and I mean View, not VID), would be I think great
for teaching GUI design.
The downside would be the lack of documentation, (especially for
View), plus the lack of experienced REBOL programmers to teach the
language. Not a good look when the teacher doesn't know the answer
to a question and hasn't the resources to find it.
--
Carl Read
